Quattro - I'm sorry your surgery sounds so run down. But I'd imagine working in a place where they have to lock the toilets to stop people shooting up in them would dent your morale slightly, so may explain at least a little some of the attitude you come across (not that that makes it acceptable).
But about the "there are not enough doctors because we don't train enough...because the medical profession colluded in this...because you increase salaries" I'd like to hear your evidence (other than the Daily Mail) for this! In fact just this week it was reported that UK applicants to medical schools is down 2.3% due, in large part, to the £3000 per year fees (for a 5-year degree where you do not get student holidays and are expected to get weekend/evening experience on the wards, so earning money on the side is pretty hard. Fancy starting life £15000 in debt?)
Why does the Health Service need gatekeepers? Well there are many different models of Healthcare. One of the other models which you come across in for example Portugal, is where you refer yourself to the specialist for whatever complaint you have. So if you have say chest pain, you go to a cardiologist. But you are not medical, and do not know that your chest pain is not from your heart, but from your gullet - so you present yourself to the wrong specialist wasting your time and theirs, plus you money since most healthcare systems are not free.
Also, gatekeepers prevent people from thinking, ooh I feel a little under par, I know I'll get myself a list of 20 blood tests, 3 x-rays, and ultrasound and a CT scan. Thus running up an enormous bill, not to mention exposing yourself to goodness knows how much ionising radiation. Plus it is well documented that scattergun investigations sometimes pick up irrelevant abnormalities leading to investigations that aren't necessary, may be harmful, and may lead to the real diagnosis being overlooked.
Harrisey - wow! That's some half day!!
Swedes - I don't think this is about patting people on the back. You said "I have had very limited experience of GPs". Yet on the basis of one conversation with the receptionist, you decided to start a thread slagging off all GPs, then find it weird when GPs/their friends/relatives/even patients reply saying, um don't tar them all with the same brush. It'd be like me saying, we had a teacher kicked out of school for "tickling" the girls, and starting a thread titled "Goodness, aren't all teachers paedophiles" and being surprised at a rush of people parping. And I don't think anyone has been "summarily exectued". I think when people have made points, we have tried to answer them with the knowledge we have. It's just that you don't seem to like/agree with our answers.
The government are perfectly happy for the media to continue to feed the current popular opinion that GPs are overpaid, underworked, underskilled and rplaceable. Because then a) the blame for NHS problems is directed away from the government, and b) they are a step closer to privatising the NHS and removing an almighty headache from them (without the need to see a neurologist )
And you also don't seem to be paying any attention to what we are saying (no doubt because you can do better). But more than one person on this thread has said your symptoms can be caused by more than one thing. So you insisting on a blood test before seeing your GP saves no-one any time, if you go for the result, then have to go all the way back for more tests that could have been done first time round if you'd had a consultation first (think of all those parking/babysitting charges!)
Expat - they come in armed with sheafs of paper they've downloaded from the net!
OK I've been typing this as I've been reading, so some (a lot!) of what I am saying has been duplicated.
Then I get to Swede's post "I've been sent for thyroid test and FBC". Exactly what we've been saying! If you'd gone for the blood test first and it was normal, you'd have had to then see GP for examination, then gone back for fbc, then back to gp for result of that! Thunnk!